Go vote today if you live in Pearland or Southwest Houston [Editorial]

Charles Cobb, a political volunteer with Matt Beasley, candidate for Montgomery County Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace, waits for voters during a slow turnout at the South County Community Center voting location, Tuesday, March 6, 2018.

Photo: Jason Fochtman, Staff photographer / Houston Chronicle

Voters who participate in elections this Saturday will have a chance to carry impressive clout in low-turnout races that can be decided by only a few votes.

In Southwest Houston, folks will choose between nine candidates vying to serve on the Houston City Council race for District K — a competitive race to fill the rest of the term of incumbent Council Member Larry Green, whose unexpected death left a void at City Hall’s horseshoe-shaped table.

Meanwhile, Pearland voters will have a choice between incumbents and diverse challengers for the city council and school board.

For the Houston council, there is a field of passionate candidates. Martha Castex-Tatum, 48, is the director of constituent services in the late Councilman Green’s office. Patricia “Pat” Frazier, 58, is a politically active educator who ran for this office in 2011 and served on Mayor Sylvester Turner’s transition team. Anthony Freddie, 55, spent almost 30 years working in municipal government, including stints as an assistant to Mayor Lee Brown’s chief of staff and chairman of the Super Neighborhood Alliance committee. Carl David Evans, 63, works for an accounting firm and serves as the president of a super neighborhood group. Elisabeth E. Johnson, 32, is a Texas Southern University graduate student who’s about to graduate with a master’s degree in public administration. Gerry Vander-Lyn, 68, is an accounting firm records management worker who’s been involved in Republican politics for at least 50 years.

Lawrence J. McGaffie and Aisha Savoy did not meet with the editorial board.

Both Castex-Tatum and Frazier are stand-out candidates. They each have deep roots in the area, and they’re intimately familiar with the district, where attracting a major grocery store to a so-called “food desert” is a major issue.

Castex-Tatum’s breadth of experience makes her the better candidate.

As a former top level aide to Green, Castex-Tatum already has detailed knowledge of what’s happening in the district and what city government is doing about it. Though Freddie also showed awareness of Houston’s flooding problems, Castex-Tatum cited details about specific flood control efforts, such as how improvements to a district parking lot made it more permeable for soaking up floodwaters.

No matter where you live in our metro area, all voters affected by Harvey’s floods should make sure they’ve updated their registrations.

Harvey may have caused a higher than usual percentage of voters in our metro area to be moved to lists that registrars call “suspense.” Some may have ended up on that list — or even had their registrations purged — because of a recent Harvey-related relocation or because they didn’t get mail or respond to notification letters from a voter registration office.

Back in November, about 8 percent of Texas voters were listed as “suspense.” Now it’s 14 percent. Similarly in November 2017, 6 percent of Harris County voters were listed as in “suspense.” Now it’s 14 percent. In little Aransas County, the number of “suspense voters” rose from 6 percent to 18 percent. And down in Brazoria County, the percentage of suspense voters also grew from 7 to 18 percent, according to the secretary of state.

If you’re on the suspense list, present an ID and verify that you haven’t moved (or that you moved back home) when you go to vote. If you have relocated since you registered, you should re-register. Generally, voters who haven’t voted in a while or moved and failed to update registrations end up on “suspense” lists. After a while, they can be purged from the voter rolls. Don’t let that happen to you!